Follow the money: Taxpayers have a right to know why the Utah Legislature passed a law (HB179) allowing the Utah Transit Authority to swap a piece of state-owned land, designated as open space, to a private developer to build a UTA FrontRunner station at 13500 South in Draper.

It's puzzling since UTA, after conducting an impact study, had already selected its first choice, the state-owned 14000 South site in Draper adjacent to the Bangerter Highway. Is this a case where the public's interest is ignored over private interest? Sen. Karen Morgan's opposition to the bill was to protect taxpayers and the pubic interest.

For some unknown reason, UTA changed its first choice about building the station at 14000 South in Draper and decided to get the Legislature to allow UTA to exchange state property owned by the Department of Natural Resources on 13500 South for property owned by a private developer on 12800 South. Even more perplexing is, why would UTA want to waste taxpayers' money, since it had earlier purchased another piece of property on 14600 South in Bluffdale? Is it a matter of having too much taxpayer money to spend?

Furthermore, the exchange of the 13500 South land owned by the Department of Natural Resources contains 3,000-year-old archeological findings of American Indian artifacts considered by Native American leaders as sacred ground to be protected. The Legislature, however, ignored a letter from Rupert Steele, chairman of the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Indian Reservation, who opposed HB179 on that basis and because it was disrespectful to his ancestry.

On the other hand, there is a state agency that fully honors the importance of historical findings and follows the intent of state and federal laws to protect historical sites: the Department of Transportation. It was that department, during the planning of the Bangerter Highway, that discovered the 3,000-year-old Native American artifacts and redesigned the road to curve around them. The Utah Professional Archaeological Council wants to preserve the site.

It is a sad day for the citizens of Utah to see how lawmakers and UTA seem to have put special interests above the public good. The policy-making process has been compromised by what appears to be conflicts of interest and disregard for cultural and religious beliefs, and that is contrary to the basic values on which our state was founded.